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The Chicago Bulls (6-20) provided a little surprise and clearly beat the Eastern Conference leader, Boston Celtics (23-6), with 108:85. The guests had to do without Kyrie Irving. For Chicago, Nikola Mirotic and Bobby Portis were particularly convincing.

Without Irving, the Celtics’ offense was difficult to enjoy. It proved to be true, as evidenced by past games. Without Uncle Drew the offensive faltered enormously, especially in the first half. The Bulls took advantage of this and established a lead of up to 18 points with a strong second quarter.

Even after the change, the Bulls stopped and refused to let the guests run. The lead remained consistently above ten points, because Boston did not spread any creativity in the offense and made Chicago easy. So it was enough for the Bulls to clinch their sixth win of the season, which ultimately turned out to be even more pronounced and gave them a good six minutes of garbage time. Chicago had to do without rookie and top scorer Lauri Markkanen.

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Top scorer at Chicago was Bobby Portis with 23 points (10/15 FG) coming from the bank. Nikola Mirotic, who was in the Starting Five for the first time this season, scored 13 points in the first quarter and ended up with 24 points and 8 rebounds. Jerian Grant played 9 Assists. Paul Zipser only took three throws for 8 points and 2 rebounds in a good 20 minutes, but played well at both ends of the court.

No one could stand out in Celtics and Al Horford was the best scorer with 15 points. Jaylen Brown, Marcus Smart and Terry Rozier each scored 13 points. Daniel Theis didn’t play much, but came back in the garbage time and scored 4 points (1/3 FG), 2 rebounds and 1 block.

Due to the absence of Irving or Marcus Morris, the Bank of Celtics was significantly weakened. Among other things, Abdel Nader also got minutes in the first half. But Brad Stevens didn’t get much production from his reservists. Chicago, whose bank provided many positive impulses with Portis, Nwaba or even Zipser. With 55:30 the Bulls-reservists outscorte their opponents.

Another Celtics shortcoming was the turnovers. Smart, Shane Larkin and Rozier were able to bring order into the game and so many pieces of work remained. The guests had already given the ball ten times during the break – unusual for the best team in the East. Only five were added after the change, but with a weak throwing rate of 39.8 percent, the highest defeat of the season was unavoidable, not least because Chicago took great care of the ball (only 8 turnovers).

Smart scuttled his first three distance throws in the first quarter, after that Boston didn’t have much left for him. Only 25 percent of the triples (10/40) passed through the Reuse. Instead, the Bulls dominated in this category, who were among the league’s four worst teams in the three-way ratio before the game. 12 of the 29 attempts were sunk. Especially Grant (2/2), Portis (3/3) and Zipser (2/2) were mainly responsible.

The Celtics scored a slim two free throws in the first half. A good indicator for the lack of aggressiveness and also that Boston took too many jumpers. After the change it got a little better, but 14 freebies (only 9 hits) are still clearly not enough. Only in the Brooklyn Nets tour was the record champion rarely on the line (9 attempts).

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Bobby Portis. His game presented Celtics with unsolvable problems that night. Scorte efficiently from outside, but also showed some demonstrable moves in the post office. Also held up well in the Defense some times. 23 points were even a new Career High for the Power Forward.

Jayson Tatum. The season’s best three-gunner had a black day. On the one hand the distance throw didn’t fall this time (0/4 threesomes), on the other hand he tried to do things he hadn’t done before in the absence of Irving. Went to parts aggressive in the post against smaller opponents, but could not finish at the ring (4 points, 1/7 FG). At least he took 10 rebounds, but that’s all he managed. In his defense, pretty much every Celtics player could have stood here after this game.

The Bulls were particularly successful with the small lineup without Lopez in the middle. So it was logical that Coach Hoiberg had to bet on the hot Portis and Mirotic almost continuously during the run and had to stew RoLo on the bench. Zipser was also part of the formation and was allowed to continue playing. In the second half, history repeated itself and the Bulls divided with the strong second unit.